GOP pushes for cameras in Rules room

The House Rules Committee met Wednesday to discuss floor procedures leading up to this weekend’s climactic vote on health care reform. But that’s not what the Republicans wanted to talk about; they wanted to know if the Democrats would hook up cameras in the committee’s meeting room.

California Republican David Dreier had his vision for the room planned out.

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He pointed above a painting of Niagara Falls, where a camera could be placed.

“We don’t have to move anything at all other than install a camera over there, and put that wiring in there, and then if you moved that across there…put screens in there so you’d have a monitor…we don’t have to change the venue at all,” he explained to his colleagues. “It just creates a venue for the American people to see what goes on in this room. And frankly, from what I heard from a lot of people, and what my colleagues and I have seen, I know there’s a lot of concern about what may be coming forward here.”

Dreier and Chairwoman Louise Slaughter were both clad in green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but neither was feeling too festive.

“How did it suddenly come to your attention, when all the years that you were in charge, the room was just fine?” Slaughter wanted to know.

“It suddenly came to my attention because we were promised another way,” Dreier shot back. “We were told that this would be the most open Congress in this history of the republic.”

“Oh, mercy! You weren’t promised a different room!” scoffed Slaughter, noting that C-Span was able to attend the Rules Committee meetings – and, in fact, there were cameras and reporters in the room.

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern was similarly unimpressed by Dreier’s entreaties. “First of all, I want to thank the chairwoman for approaching this issue more seriously than you did when you were chair, Mr. Dreier,” he fumed.

But Dreier, champion of the press, would not be cowed.

“The cameramen from C-Span have been relegated to crouching in that corner,” he lamented.